A Fremont detective who normally wears a body camera when working didn’t do so on the day he and another detective fatally shot a pregnant 16-year-old Hayward girl during an undercover operation, according to Fremont Chief of Police Richard Lucero.

“My preliminary understanding is that it wasn’t working and so they weren’t using it that day,” Lucero said in a recent interview with The Argus, referring to the March 14 shooting that ended with Antioch teenager Elena Mondragon dead.

The two detectives involved in the shooting were conducting a covert follow-up investigation into a string of armed robberies. They were dressed in plainclothes when they fired at a car police said rammed their vehicle.

Mondragon, a passenger, was one of four people in the car police said was linked to armed robberies in Fremont and around the Bay Area.

The detectives are part of the Southern Alameda County Major Crimes Task Force, which is comprised of officers from several law enforcement and government organizations. Both have body-worn cameras assigned to them, according to police.

At an April 11 Hayward City Council meeting, Hayward Police Chief Mark Koller said there was no video of the shooting because the one detective with a body-worn camera tried to activate it but “for some reason” it did not turn on.

Lucero said the reason the other detective wasn’t wearing his is one of the “points the investigation will have to resolve.”

The Fremont and Hayward police departments are investigating the shooting, and a separate probe is still being conducted by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office.

It is unclear whether any supervisor of the detective who was not wearing a body-worn camera had been informed of that before the shooting. Geneva Bosques, a spokeswoman for the Fremont Police Department, said in an email “The pending investigations will determine the specific aspects of the use of body-worn cameras.”

Lucero meanwhile is standing by his detectives’ decision to shoot into a moving vehicle, despite an internal policy that states “shots fired at or from a moving vehicle are rarely effective.”

Hayward police said in a prior statement that the detectives attempted to stop the car at the City View Apartment Homes complex at 25200 Carlos Bee Blvd., near California State University, East Bay.

“As they contacted the occupants, the driver of the suspect vehicle suddenly rammed the detective’s police vehicles injuring two Fremont detectives,” according to the statement.

“During the incident, Fremont detectives were forced to fire their duty weapons at the suspect driving the vehicle and one of the female occupants was struck by gunfire,” the statement added.

Fremont police’s use-of-force policy says “Officers should move out of the path of an approaching vehicle instead of discharging their firearm at the vehicle or any of its occupants.”

It adds: “An officer should only discharge a firearm at a moving vehicle or its occupants when the officer reasonably believes there are no other reasonable means available to avert the threat of the vehicle, or if deadly force other than the vehicle is directed at the officer or others.”

When asked whether he believes his officers were correct to shoot into the car while it was moving, Lucero said in an email last week, “With the understanding these investigations are not complete, the information I have received to this point leads me to conclude it is within policy.”

Bishop Jerry W. Macklin, of Glad Tidings Church of God in Hayward, also spoke at the Hayward City Council meeting in April, during which Mondragon’s family members asked for “accountability” and “truth” from the city in its investigation.

“I know that we can do this,” Macklin said. “Let’s answer what needs to be answered. It may hurt, but it’s better to hurt now than continuous hurt later. We can do this.”

Joseph Geha is a multimedia journalist covering Fremont, Milpitas, Union City, and Newark for the Bay Area News Group. His prior work has been seen in multiple Bay Area outlets, including SF Weekly, as well as on KQED and KLIV radio. He is a graduate of California State University, East Bay (Hayward), a Fremont native and a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan.

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